Intermission
by Dingo
Summary: Hunter, Dustin, Cam, and Cam’s confusion. Sequel to Interlude.


Title: Intermission

Author: Dingo

Summary: Hunter, Dustin, Cam, and Cam's confusion. Sequel to Interlude.

Spoilers: None, really. It's roughly somewhere between Hunter and Blake joining the team and the Samurai Journey. There's also a reference to NCIS's "Minimum Security".

Author's Note: I'm not exactly sure what it is that I have unleashed here…

* * *

Hunter had the most annoying habit of staring at him.

He'd only noticed it, oh, the second time Hunter did it. The second day he was on speaking terms with the Rangers. Since then he'd sensed Hunter staring at him at least once a day. Which added up to literally hundreds of times.

After Hunter and Dustin 'came out', so to speak (they hadn't really, not in the traditional sense; the day they'd been found necking in the Zord bay by his cyber replicant couldn't really count), it had made even less sense. He expected it to stop. It didn't. If anything, it got more frequent. Cam had stared back once or twice or a hundred times. Each time Hunter had given him an infuriatingly knowing look.

It was every overbearing professor he'd ever had mixed with a generous helping of every smarmy politician he'd ever seen and a dash of his father at his patronizing paternal worst.

Unfortunately, the gross majority of the time they weren't alone. And nothing screamed "awkward" more than calling Dustin's boyfriend out on a staring problem in front of his Sensei, incidentally Cam's father. Or, even worse, Dustin himself.

So, problem.

It all came down to the day where Hunter was in Ninja Ops with Cam. Not alone. Dustin was also there. This was fantastic, because when Dustin was present not every Hunter-Stare™ was directed his way. However, this was not completely fantastic, because it meant one more day passed where Cam couldn't threaten Hunter with rusty pointed bits sticking out of the seat of his Tsunami Cycle if he didn't remove his eyeballs from his…whatever Hunter stared at.

It had started relatively normal before the downhill slide. Shane and Dustin had been late. Tori had been early. Blake and Hunter had managed to be so ridiculously early that Sensei had banished them outside to spar until the others showed up. After Dustin and Shane arrived, Hunter and Dustin were instructed to spar within Ninja Ops itself – not a good idea in Cam's view, but what was he besides the technical help? Blake, Tori and Shane were instructed to go down to the beach where Sensei would follow and watch their practice. Ergo, Dustin and his boyfriend in Ninja Ops, with the technician Hunter couldn't seem to keep his eyes off.

"I let you get that one," Hunter joked, a sudden lack of battle cries leading Cam to think that they had ended their sparring for the moment.

"No way dude. You're just getting slow in your old age."

The sounds of further tussling nearly convinced Cam to turn around, but he steadfastly watched his computer monitor.

"Cam's…older than…I am," Hunter managed, getting the words out between blocks.

"How much older?" Dustin asked with interest, his physical activity seemingly not impacting on his ability to speak.

"I don't…know."

"How old are you, Cam?" Dustin questioned, raising his voice as if Cam was standing in downtown Blue Bay and not just across the room.

Cam knew Hunter had raised an eyebrow before he said anything. "You don't…know how…old he is?"

"He was the Sensei's son, dude. Besides, it's not like he ever hung with us before Lothor attacked."

"I still am the Sensei's son, Dustin. And I'm twenty-two, if you must know," Cam sighed. They'd known each other for eighteen months, and Dustin didn't know how old he was. That was nearly sad.

"So definitely legal." He heard Dustin's smirk through his voice.

"I'm not buying you alcohol."

"Dude, what would I want with alcohol?" Dustin sounded puzzled. The two must have signaled that the spar was over, since the almost-rhythmic sounds of feet slapping ended abruptly. Both walked over towards him, and he sighed again. Bother. "I meant legal for other stuff."

"I'm not sneaking you into a bar."

"Not that." Dustin was rolling his eyes, Cam would bet. "Sex."

Cam spluttered and coughed. If he'd been drinking anything, it would have gone up his nose.

"I think you broke him." Hunter's voice sounded amused.

"Sorry man." Dustin's hand appeared, offering tissues.

Cam waved them away, spinning his chair to stare at the two ninja now in front of him. "I really don't want to know what the two of you do behind closed doors; I'd end up an accessory to statutory rape or something."

"Statutory…who's the minor, then?" Hunter asked. He looked over at Dustin with a question in his eyes.

Dustin grinned, and then laughed. "Man, I'm eighteen. Hunter's nineteen."

Cam's mouth dropped. He covered it up quickly by swinging his chair back around to face the monitor.

"You didn't know how old Dustin was, and yet you got all high and mighty because he didn't know how old you were?" Hunter asked with a laugh evident in his tone.

"Hey. There were a lot of ninja students, and those three never stood out enough for me to know anything more than their names. There was only one Sensei's son."

"Yeah, well, it's been months since we were the only ninja students on Earth." Hunter bent down, resting his arms against the back of Cam's chair. His fingers brushed the hair at the nape of Cam's head. It distracted him for a second, before the actual words absorbed. He let Hunter swing the chair back around and step back, crossing his arms, the defensive posture at complete odds with the look in his eyes – the same bloody one he had when he was staring at Cam.

"And I've been busy."

Dustin waved at Hunter. "I don't care. Age isn't important."

"True that." Hunter was still fucking staring.

"Back to sex."

"Please, Dustin, can we not?"

Dustin shrugged. "It's a perfectly healthy act, man. Lots of fun."

Cam shook his head.

"Biological act between creatures within a species in response to physio- and neurological stimuli?" Hunter offered.

Cam stared at him.

"NCIS was on last night. Lots of porn."

"There was a fair mention of porn, dude," Dustin nodded, backing Hunter up.

"I really don't know how we moved on to this topic-"

Dustin shrugged again. "Age, legal, sex, seems perfectly clear to me."

"-or why, but-"

"Because we want to sleep with you," Hunter interjected.

"-it's really not a topic that I want my father walking in on. Alright? So if we can just get back to…wait." Cam stared at Hunter, who just stared goddamn infuriatingly back.

"Finally we get up the nerve to ask you, and…aw, man, you aren't straight, are you?" Dustin sounded disappointed.

Cam was still trying to process Hunter's last sentence. "You want what?"

"We want to sleep with you," Hunter repeated patiently.

" 'Cause if you are, that's totally fine, you know, but it kinda sucks for us-"

"I got that. Where did this idea come from?" Cam asked, more than a little shocked.

"-right, 'cause the whole threesome idea probably won't work out if you're not attracted to at least one of us-"

"From Dustin. Obviously. He had this idea that you and me together would be…"hot beyond Hell and the Sahara", I think his exact words were." Hunter grinned.

"-and if you're straight, that won't work since we're both dudes, dude, and this is really kinda weird, me saying that it's cool if you're straight-"

"Have you considered actually approaching me and asking me about this?" Cam questioned.

"-because it's usually us coming out to other people who say "aw, yeah that's cool man", or whatever-"

"What would you call this?" Hunter said reasonably.

"-since we're in the minority and all, and you still haven't answered the question?" Dustin finished his tirade.

Cam stared at the two people in front of him, both with questioning looks on their faces.

"I think I'm going insane," he said slowly.

Dustin opened his mouth (Cam prepared for a further torrent of words that would cement his insanity) and Hunter clapped his hand over it.

"Maybe I could take this, babe," Hunter said gently.

Dustin nodded, still with Hunter's hand over his mouth. "Mmmahaargamon," he agreed.

"We would like to have a threesome with you," Hunter spelled out. "Whether or not as a permanent position or not is completely up to you, whether you want to tell the others is up to you, whatever happens…is completely up to you."

"When did this come up?" Cam questioned, his thoughts swirling around his head.

Hunter glanced over at Dustin, who twitched his eyebrows (Hunter's hand still over his mouth). "About…a month after we started going out?"

Dustin nodded approvingly.

"You both have serious screws loose, you know that?" Cam determined.

Hunter only smiled; the ever-present sour note in Cam's voice had dimmed just a touch.

"We don't have to jump into bed straight away," Dustin jumped in, batting Hunter's hand from his face. "We can go out somewhere, like a date – to the movies or something."

Hunter's smile grew. "C'mon Cam," he cajoled. "You'll get twice the wooing."

"…wooing?" Cam leaned back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his face. "You have to be the type of people to say 'wooing', don't you?"

"What's wrong with a good woo?" Dustin inquired. "Hunter woos well. He never got to the level of flowers, but even so-"

"You guys don't even know if I'm straight or not," Cam sighed, hands still covering his face.

Hunter's smile slid off his face, quickly becoming a frown. "Are you?"

"…no. But that's not the point."

"Then what is the point?"

"Haven't you guys ever seen _Threesome_? Or _Sunday Bloody Sunday_? These things don't work out." Cam exhaled through his teeth, still utterly disturbed by the fact that two of his male teammates who were in a relationship with each other had approached him for sex.

"But we could still try," Dustin persisted. "We'd still be friends afterwards, if it didn't work out, and dude, imagine if it does!" His eyes widened at the thought. "We could be absolutely unstoppable! You'd be able to manage the money stuff, and Hunter could scare off telemarketers and door to door salesmen and I could be nice to Girl Guides!"

"Plus, I don't think they've ever made a movie about three guys together. Therefore there's no negative precedent." Hunter's face was impassive. Cam could see his expression was the same as if they were talking about what colour to paint Ninja Ops' entrance.

"Y'know, except pornos," Dustin interjected.

"We could just date," Hunter reiterated. "A couple of dinners, maybe that new sci-fi flick playing at the Multiplex…"

Cam blinked. "What sci-fi flick?"

"I have no idea, but I figured there's a sci-fi flick playing somewhere that we could watch."

Dustin and Hunter both looked at him with puppy-dog eyes. Hunter's gaze through his eyelashes was almost as effective as Dustin's half-pout.

Cam sighed, spinning in his chair to gaze blankly at the specs still scrolling down the main computer screen.

Hunter sighed behind him.

Cam heard the small thuds of their boots as they started to exit Ops.

"There aren't any sci-fi movies playing at the theatre," Cam said resignedly. "I don't like them much anyway. And I'll buy my own ticket, thank you."

There was the smack of a high-five behind him.


End file.
